Poles celebrate as Government signs pact for free trade unions

The general strike which crippled economic activity along Poland's Baltic coast was formally declared over yesterday after an agreement to establish independent trade unions and recognise the right to strike.

Polish state television and radio gave unprecedented coverage last night to emotional ceremonies endorsing the agreement in the ports of Szczecin and Gdansk, the two main headquarters for northern Poland.

The strike leaders were shown shaking hands with Government negotiators and later both sides joined in singing the Polish national anthem.

Each ceremony lasted about 20 minutes and was televised in full. At the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, the strike leader Lech Walesa, said: "We have not won everything that we hoped for and dreamed about, but we have achieved as much as we could under the circumstances, including respect for certain civil rights."

Noting that work would resume on September 1, the anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Poland, he added: "This is a day when we think of our homeland just as we have shown solidarity during the strike, so too will this solidarity be maintained as we go back to work."

The agreement to end the strike in Gdansk, involving 500 factories, almost collapsed late on Saturday night after a rift developed within the presidium of the strike committee. Some members were unhappy over a pledge that the new independent trade unions would respect the leading role of the Communist Party in Poland's political system.

But Mr Walesa, who has emerged as an immensely skilled handler of his followers, saved the settlement by appealing over the heads of the presidium to the full committee of 1,000 delegates.

In a rousing speech, he shouted: "We have formed these trade unions ourselves. If you are there inside them, as I am, then you can be sure that we won't allow anybody else to have a leading role over them."

On censorship Mr Walesa said that the journals of the new unions would publish whatever they wanted, whether anybody liked it or not.